New Cinematic: My Deep-Dive Explanation

Lore Story
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Greetings, members of the WoW community!

The confusion about the new cinematic is rather obvious at this point, and I do have some of my own critiques about it. However, I do believe that if we look at the recent lore of Elune and in Shadowlands, we can piece it together into a reasonable story experience. Note: this information comes solely from presented lore with minimal speculation Here we go!

First off: Elune. As a goddess, she has NEVER been directly involved in a major way. The closest we’ve seen is her intercepting Ysera’s soul. Not during the War of the Ancients, not during the third War, not during Cataclysm, Legion or anything like that. That is proven to exhaustion by now.

We know, for a fact, that the Winter Queen HATES Elune. She does not like her. It is heavily implied that Elune walked out on the Winter Queen for reasons yet unknown. Elune was not around, and the Winter Queen was not going to be talking to her to fill in what’s going on.

The Winter Queen accused Elune of ignoring her “cries for help.” This means more than one time, the Winter Queen tried to get Elune to help. Yet Elune states that she “heard her cries, felt her pain.” I believe that, due to Elune not being able to get involved due to not being ABLE to rather than not choosing to, she was trying to find ways to help the Winter Queen. (This is the "minimal speculation part.)

Elune stated that she, “in the wake of tragedy, sent forth the cascade of souls to sustain you.” To me, this message is clear: Elune did NOT cause the burning of Teldrassil. She was deeply grieved by it, seeing she referred to it as a tragedy and actually cried. But as shown with her intercepting Ysera’s soul, she believed she could take the kaldorei souls to Ardenweald so they could help the Winter Queen’s realm survive. She could use this chance to help her sister, grim as it is, but she would also be allowing her children to rest.

She could not intervene to stop the burning, but she would let their deaths have meaning.

But due to the Winter Queen not knowing about the Arbiter being broken until we quest in Shadowlands (long after the cries for help were sent out), and Elune was off somewhere else and on the Winter Queen’s bad side (and thus not on speaking terms), she accidentally sent the souls to the Maw when she wanted them to go to Ardenweald. This was clearly not her intent, as that is when she cried.

That is what I interpreted the cinematic as. TL;DR, Elune couldn’t stop the burning, so she tried to help her sister in the grim aftermath of the burning. Yet her separation caused her to not realize where the souls were going.

These are my thoughts to explain Elune’s actions. She’s shown time and time again very limited intervention, but this may be because she cannot. I can bet that if she could have saved the Kaldorei, she would have. But she couldn’t, and so she tried to guide them to a greater purpose. She is depicted as well-meaning for her limited capability, and yet relatable in that she can make mistakes. She truly desired to help the sister that shunned her, yet she was as ignorant as the rest at the time (barring the Primus and Denathrius) and accidentally condemned her followers to the Maw.

I hope this all makes a bit more sense now.

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Good summary. That was the same impression the cinematic gave me.

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Not really. Like you say yourself, this is one interpretation. One with some unproven assumptions, like the ones about Elune’s limitations, or her having the means to send souls to Ardenweald, but not to bypass the soulstream that sends them to the Maw. Other explanations work just as well.

And really, if this is the limit of her interventions, the Nelves would be better off worshipping the ancients directly. Those at least could certainly have smashed some catapults.

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To you, it is. But if we take a look at the surrounding story, the Killer Queen quest, for example, states the following:

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: When I sent you on this mission, I did not foresee this outcome.

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner says: Our attack was meant to end a war before it began…

Also, add to this the original chatting pre-BfA about “guess who burned the tree”.

Add to this that the regular ancient, by which I mean the walking trees, are extremely hard to burn.

So how does a tree™ so big, amid the water, and with so many moonwells, suddenly was caught on fire so quickly?

I am not saying she did burn it. But her having a hand in it, and simultaneosly making elves sleep + spreading fire at ridiculour pace, do fit the existing lore rather accurately too.

Time will tell. To those who will remain paying attention to the story.

gl hf

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We already have answers to this. Sylvanas always planned the burning. She foresaw it, alright.
On top of that did the tree burn so fast because the Horde shaman were fanning up the flames with the winds etc. It’s all in the A Good War novella.

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You never know where this story will turn. One day they claim that was the case. Another day they remember that the real reason of burning was teased to be a mystery of some sort.

Supposedly. I mentioned already that there was a quest during the BfA pre-patch to set of fine one of ancients. And it took ages to get 1 small “tree” down wline the forces of the horde were next to it. Might be more to the story.

gl hf

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I think it would be worth remembering that according to Sylvanas own inner monologue she only burned the tree because they failed to kill Malfurion, and needed something on an equal scale.

Something that would really hurt the Alliance and be a heavy blow, and now with the added context I bet Malfurion would be worth a lot of anima and become a mighty fine champion/weapon of the jailer.

However what prevented them killing Malfurion? That’s right, Elune. Elune stayed Saurfangs axe, and she guided Tyrande through the forest as quickly as possible to his position. Elune’s actions had consequences, and those became the burning of Teldrassil.
She might not have intended or wanted them to burn Teldrassil, but that’s what happened, and when it burned she did nothing to prevent it, she just let her followers slumber as she decided they would feed Ardenweald.
Which is not a great view from the point of the night elves.

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I think you are reaching way to much in order to get to said conclusion……

I keep on reading stuff like this but I don’t see how….

Given she didn’t know about the Maw, it’s obvious she isn’t omniscient. So there is no way she could’ve anticipated said attack.
She also requires a mortal vessel (Night Warrior), in order to have a more physical manifestation of her powers.

So, in all, I honestly don’t see how could she prevent the whole thing.
I’d say that she reacted the best way she could’ve.

If you think that she could’ve acted to prevent such, please, explain how.
And bear in mind we have precedents such as the War of the Ancients, the Third War, or Nzoths invasion, where she didn’t directly act either.

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And now you claim to know how her powers work? Come on, we are all guessing here.

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That’s the point. I don’t know. But neither do you or anybody else.
We can just work with the information given, and assume that she did what she could.

I can make an educated guess based on her past stance in similar scenarios. And i can compare such with the times we know she DID intervene.

When the Kaldorei faced the Legion (3 times) or when they faced the Old Gods and similar threats, she never intervened directly.

She did grant a few chosen ones (Night Warriors etc.) a sample of her power so that THEY could physically intervene on her “behalf”.

And about this whole thing with Teldrassil…yeah. We can only work on the information given.

And I’ll repeat that, given she didn’t know about the Maw, its clear that she isn’t omniscient nor could’ve anticipated said attack. And given the fact that when push came to shove and she had to stand with the NE, she did so in the form of a magic racial boost, it begs the question regarding whether she could’ve physically aided them in any other way.

In all, and yes this is still my own educated guess, evidence piles against the premise that “She just decided to do nothing when she could’ve done much more”.

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Sylvanas has also proclaimed to want the best for the Horde in internal monologue (lol). I presume the internal monologue you mean is from Elegy or A Good War. In the same books she internally monologues that Teldrassil will burn, so take from that what you want…

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The first part in no way relates to the second. Yes, she isn’t omniscient. No, that does not mean she couldn’t or shouldn’t have known. We just don’t know how any of this works.

Yes. Cosider the question begged.

So that’s the amount of grains you need to make a pile, I guess. I’d say we aren’t educated enough about the underlying fictional facts to lay claim to any educated guesses. Mostly because I think they are all subject to change, the current ones as well as the ones we want to use as evidence.

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If you want to question why the hell did Elune not act more directly now, you might as well start asking yourself how is it that people somehow find her current stance so aggravating even after having her similarly sit through all yearly world ending threats that endangered far more her “favoured children”.

Including 3 demonic invasions that targeted them specifically.

Either you assume that she was always this passive, or start accepting that the extent of her powers in the mortal plane, can only be manifested in certain ways. And stuff like the Night Warrior should naturally point towards the latter.

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That’s easy. The world-ending threats were averted. Often with some relevant measure of support from Elune and her servants. Teldrassil wasn’t. You blame God for what happens to their chosen people, not what could have happened to them.

Also, stuff that you didn’t play through doesn’t have the same emotional weight. Who the heck cares more about historical stuff than the stuff they lived through?

And even more, the characters of the story apparently saw it as different. Tyrande didn’t go Night Warrior for the War of the Ancients.

Does any of that matter, though? No, because Blizzard doesn’t care about your deductions, and treats continuity like a disease. Our best evidence is still worth less than poop.

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I think the issue here is the belief in Elune who is a goddess and worshipped. Just because she is a goddess, does not mean she can prevent calamities, she can grant some powers like making Tyrande the Night Warrior, but even those powers are more of a curse than a blessing.

I think what we are seeing here is the game looking at religion in a sense in a different way. The Night Elves worship Elune but do not see her flaws or that she may not be able to do what they want all of the time, its the same as people who get upset at the Christian God when bad things happen, but praise him when good things happen.

So the issue now is the Night Elves are questioning their entire belief system, so perhaps this is what SL is about: a reorganization of belief systems, after all we have seen that the Light is not always good and that Void magic can be used for good purposes.

And maybe this is what the jailer is all for as well, the tearing down of these belief systems will make it easier to impose a new life order system on everyone.

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I can understand said view to some extent.

But there is a difference between that and the somewhat widespread stance about “Blizzard butchering Elune by having her kill NE by action and/or by omission”.
Sorry, but that’s not the case.

The extent of her actions now check with how she has historically behaved in the past.

This isn’t new.

Regardless of the emotional displays, she behaved similarly as when NEs had to survive a literal apocalypse that split the world in half and killed 100 times more of their people.

Emotional baggage aside, this characterisation of her has always been there.

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this cinematic tells rison why Elune stoped Tyrande from killing Sylvanas.
If Sylvanas dies they cant save the souls what been puring in the Maw …

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